It is well known in the art to provide cup holder assemblies having cup holders adapted to receive objects of various diameters and shapes. Such features include spring loaded grippers designed to provide a variable diameter of the cup holder. Other features include inserts having a tiered interior diameter so as to accommodate cups of various sizes. However, there are many disadvantages of the previously known cup holder assemblies.
Specifically, spring loaded grippers are susceptible to damage as movable parts wear upon increased use. Also, the spring grippers can be contaminated by spillage from the cup retained in the cup holder and are difficult to clean.
Further, the ability of inserts to accommodate objects of various diameters is limited to the number of tiers provided by the insert. Moreover, insertion of the object within the insert contained in the cup holder often results in the disengagement of the insert from the cup holder as the insert has attached to the object itself.
In order to prevent the above disadvantages of the known cup holders it has been known to provide the cup holders with various shapes. One such cup holder assembly includes a container support region that has two receptacles for the temporary storage of items. Each receptacle is defined by walls of an upwardly opening blind inverted conical frustum. By selecting a tapered shape, such as a cone, allows the container support region 110 to be stacked for convenient storage when not in use. As the container support region, including the receptacles, are designed to be stacked for convenient storage, the container support region is constructed of a substantially rigid material to resist flexion under its intended use.
Although providing a receptacle formed having an inverted conical frustum shape, which is formed of a rigid material, allows for the receipt of objects of various diameters, the rigid conical frustum fails to provide sufficient engagement between the receptacle and the object to adequately retain a vertical orientation of the object.
As cup holders are often filled with objects filled with a liquid material, it is imperative that the cup holder be able to retain an upright orientation of the object to prevent spillage of the liquid contained therein. Maintaining the proper upright orientation of the object filled with liquid is particularly important in cup holder assemblies designed for automotive vehicles as driving operations often provides an inertia to the object such that cup holder assemblies that fail to maintain the upright orientation of the object result in spillage of liquid contained in the object. The inability of the cup holder assembly to properly retain the object in its upright orientation results in a decreased customer satisfaction.
Thus, there exists a need in the art to provide an improvement over known cup holder assemblies having a structure capable of accommodating objects of various diameter and providing sufficient frictional resistance of the object to maintain an upright orientation.